If progress is made with writing a new feature, usually I do not get excited too quickly until I test it and try to make sure it actually works right. Sometimes the feature will work right 90% of the time and fail only 10% of the time. But failing 10% of the time is not acceptable because that means that some people will not have access to the exporter.
Unfortunately some people might not be able to get the exporter to work across all systems because I only develope this on one 32-bit PC with Windows XP. So when an issue comes up with another OS or computer type, sometimes I am quite helpless. Issues can also come up with different builds of Blender as well. So I make sure and write which Blender version (official build) the exporter was written for. This does not mean it won't work for other builds, but you should expect issues to come up if you use a build that the exporter was not written for.
The version of Indigo is especially important when using an exporter. Each version of the exporter was written for a certain version of Indigo. You should make sure you use the matching Indigo version that your exporter was created for.
If I keep a logbook going now and then maybe it will help bring new and old ideas to the table and can see how something like that might work out. (or not work out)
First up I want to bring to attention my recent post in this forum about Blender 2.5. As far as I can tell by the documentation for Blender, it seems reasonable to believe that exporters written for version 2.45 of Blender will not work for version 2.5. So I am somewhat concerned about this. I think going deep into the exporter at this point might not be a good idea, since when Blender 2.5 comes out, (along with new Blender Python API documents that are very important to developers) there might be better ways to code or newer features to use that allows us access to new items in Blender. This event might cause the updates previously made to be a "waste of time" to code. On the other hand they may be unaffected by the update, so it is just something to think about.
I am somewhat addicted (some of you probably know this) to tearing apart the Blender exporter and rewriting it. So let me talk about some new things I am working on right now.
1. (done, testing) Rewriting mesh export function. This function is basically the most time consuming part of the exporter because it works with your meshes. The bigger your meshes are, the longer it takes to export. Exporting the scene file settings and even your materials is usually done in less than 1 second. Exporting the meshes can take a number of minutes depending on what you are working with, and how fast your computer is.
At this time I have rewritten the mesh function, and from various tests a moment ago, it is now exporting scenes in half the time as the old version. But, while I am feeling somewhat excited there is still work to be down to add texture support. The new mesh function only understands materials. Which brings me to point number 2.
2. (done, testing) Support for multiple materials on one mesh. This is now available with the newly rewritten mesh function. You can apply multiple materials to the same mesh. (by assigning materials to the faces of the mesh) I have included a picture of a simple object to show what I am talking about. There are a few different ways to write this feature and I am currently looking at the best way to do this. (I already wrote it but I am looking for an acceptable compromise between speed and exported file size)
3. (in progress) Support for multiple textures on one mesh. After optimizing point number 2, I'd like to add another new feature, and allow you to put multiple textures on one mesh. As far as I can see this should go smoothly.
Before I finish adding this entry into the log here, I want to add that these features are still in developement and although some of them might be considered done and working, some of them may cause trouble later on by messing up the entire progress of the others. So until my next entry....thanks for reading.
Edit: Opps, probably should add the picture I was talking about huh
